1. Field of the Disclosure
Aspects of the present invention relate generally to data communications, and more particularly to a system and method of extending a standard bridge to execute logical bridging functionality.
2. Background
Various types of virtual networking technologies are generally known. One popular communications standard for use in connection with virtual network implementations is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1Q standard for Ethernet applications. In accordance with certain features of this standard, a service provider may preserve a customer's virtual local area network (VLAN) protocols, groupings, privileges, and other VLAN parameters across the service provider's network backbone. In that regard, one or more ports dedicated to a customer may map customer communications across the provider's VLAN, relieving the customer from having to assign service provider VLAN identifications to network traffic. Accordingly, multiple customer VLAN data communications may be supported by a single service provider's network; this networking strategy is generally referred to as 802.1Q tunneling or 802.1QinQ.
It is noted that data packets transmitted using QinQ (or other types of networking protocols) are generally forwarded in accordance with a VLAN identification (VID) and a destination media access controller (MAC) address for each packet, facilitated by lookup tables, forwarding databases, or other data structures maintained at a network bridge, i.e., a network switch operative to transmit data and control packets across different network domains. Ordinary bridge architectures simply switch a packet from a physical ingress port to a physical egress port that is associated with the same VLAN as the ingress port. These architectures are generally limited with respect to the number of service instances, i.e., discrete VLANs, that they are able to handle. In many cases, for instance, a bridge may only be able to recognize 4,096 different virtual networks—this limitation is generally constrained by the size of the fields in packet headers (dictated by the networking protocol utilized by the network) and the characteristics of the data structure that correlates VLAN instances with VIDs and MAC addresses.
Additionally, in wireless local area network (WLAN) implementations, when a WLAN access point device receives packets from wireless stations, each data packet is generally associated with an index called a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). In use, RSSI values may be employed by intelligent applications for, among other things, discovering the location of WLAN stations or optimizing the locations of access points. While RSSI data may be useful in various ways, conventional bridging hardware does not extract RSSI information from data packets originating from wireless networks.
Although extending conventional bridge architecture and functionality to accommodate an arbitrary number of different VLANs for a multiplicity of customers and to collect RSSI information for wireless data traffic may have utility in various applications, such bridging operations are generally not contemplated in conventional inter-network communications strategies.